By RAY KELLY
The team hunting for the lost, longer cut of Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons is wrapping up work on the documentary that chronicles their expeditions to Brazil.
Filmmaker Joshua Grossberg’s search for the Holy Grail of Cinema dates back to information he gleaned during a trip Brazil more than 30 years ago. He suspected a copy of Welles’ 131-minute version of The Magnificent Ambersons might still exist. RKO Radio Pictures removed nearly 45 minutes from that longer cut in 1942, tacked on a happy ending and ordered the destruction of the excised scenes.
TCM joined Grossberg’s quixotic quest in April 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the documentary expedition making its first trek to South America until late 2021. Subsequent trips by Grossberg and his film crew to Brazil and other locales have followed since then.
“It’s not unheard of for documentaries to take a long time in the making, particularly those focusing on historical events that occurred over 80 years ago and, in our case, involving one of the greatest artists of the 20th century,” Grossberg told Wellesnet.
While Grossberg has not revealed whether he found the Welles cut or determined its fate, he said the documentary that answers those question is now in post-production for a planned release later this year.
“Rest assured, we are nearing the finish line,” he said. “We have wrapped production and post-production continues as we weave together an epic story whose thread is the search for the lost print of The Magnificent Ambersons. It’s an honor to work on this subject and we look forward to finishing the film and revealing what we found.”
A journalist and Emmy Award winner, Grossberg is working with producers Joseph Schroeder, known for his work for PBS, National Geographic, A&E and Discovery; and Gary Greenblatt, an award winning digital content producer, app developer and hard core Welles enthusiast. Rounding out the The Lost Print documentary team are editor Cintia Chamecki and motion graphics artist Rosane Chamecki.
The Ambersons downfall began as editing on the film was underway in February 1942. RKO dispatched Welles to Brazil to shoot Carnival scenes the ill-fated It’s All True. According to RKO memos and cables, two groupings of Ambersons footage (14 reels and another 10), as well as 10 reels of Journey Into Fear, were shipped to Brazil so Welles could edit the film. However, after a test audience reacted badly at a preview, RKO ordered a happier ending to be shot in Welles’ absence and the studio cut the movie down to 88 minutes.
“They destroyed Ambersons,” Welles would lament four decades later, “and the picture itself destroyed me; I didn’t get a job as a director for years afterwards.”
The studio-edited version of the film was released in July 1942, less than two weeks after newly installed RKO head Charles Koerner ordered Welles’ Mercury Productions off the lot. At the direction of her bosses, Hazel Marshall, head of RKO’s stock-film library, had the negative of the deleted scenes incinerated in December 1942. She confirmed the cremation took place in a conversation with Paramount executive Fred Chandler four decades later.
In December 1944, RKO instructed Cinedia Studios in Rio de Janiero, which Welles had used as a base, to junk The Magnificent Ambersons and Jouney Into Fear reels he had left behind. Cinedia owner Adhemar Gonzaga, a cineaste and film collector, notified RKO he had followed their orders.
During a trip to Brazil three decades ago, Grossberg met Michel do Esprito Santo, an archivist. He claimed he saw a Welles print in a film can at Cinedia Studios, though he could not confirm it was The Magnificent Ambersons. However, when the archivist searched for it later, it was gone — possibly trashed or sold to a private collector.
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